By Maggie Love
While some grads move back home after college, Heather Wiese’s senior distinction project presents us with a situation that is nearly reversed: a woman who has left college early to take care of her father.
David Auburn’s Proof opens with Catherine (Wiese) celebrating her 25th birthday with her father Robert, a renowned mathematician (Jonathan Leinbach), who we eventually learn is a hallucination. The play—which takes places a week after Robert’s death—centers on Catherine’s attempt to convince her sister (junior Emma Miller) and a mentee of Robert’s (freshman Andy Chu) that it was she and not her father who wrote the brilliant proof found in his desk drawer.
The doubt introduced in the first scene, made more chilling by Robert’s history of mental illness, grows as the play progresses. Catherine does not have a college degree; she has been in a deep depression for years; and yet she claims to have written a proof that would be challenging for even a math Ph.D.
The script turns back on itself as elegantly and carefully as it pushes forward. For instance, the scene in which Catherine first says she wrote the proof is immediately followed by a flashback in which her father tells her he can work again.
Clearly, the script leaves audience members with a lot to think about. Appropriately, the barebones set—all the action happens on the front porch—lets the viewer focus on the complexity of the storyline and its characters. The actors play their parts naturally for the most part, with Chu delivering lines like “the proof is very hip” with perfectly lovable awkwardness, and Wiese and Miller gave a moving depiction of typical sibling rivalry.
Aside from the occasional teenage-like scorn on Wiese’s part and a few awkward kisses, part of the reason these actors were able to get it so right may be because the subject matter is so close to home. Hal is 28 and Catherine is 25—both rapidly approaching or just past their prime (no pun intended), according to Hal.
But beyond questions of age or even the greater theme of evidence versus trust, there is that nagging thought about gender: To what extent is the doubt in the proof’s authorship based on the fact that Catherine is a woman?
Who better to bring this idea to life than Wiese, who is majoring in both theater studies and mathematics?
Proof asks smart questions that remain relevant well beyond the curtain call.
Proof was performed in Brody Theater Feb. 3 to 5.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.